


Don't fear the reaper

by Pameluke



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Death, Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pameluke/pseuds/Pameluke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing she sees is Death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't fear the reaper

**Author's Note:**

> This is fic about a woman who was one of the rebel spectators in the make-shift arena in episode S0309 'The Dead and the Dying'.  
> [Originally posted on tumblr](http://janoda.tumblr.com/post/47421028865/the-only-thing-she-sees-is-death-her-father-dies), where you can also see some screenshots of her.

Her father dies fighting the Romans, far away from the village where she and her mother stay behind. The elders tell tales of war and glorious death, and at night she hears her mother sobbing in her bed. She has nightmares of monstrous Romans who claw and tear her father apart. She sees her father dying a hundred times, a hundred different ways. She climbs into her mothers bed, but her mother is sick with grief and tells her to be quiet, to bear it. So she does, and bears her fathers death in silence. 

The Romans come soon after that, and she sees her mother die in front of her, trying to protect her. Later, she thinks it was a merciful death, the blade struck quick and clean. But when it happens, she is horrified, frozen with terror. She screams, and screams and screams. She screams when the Roman takes her, she screams when the Roman binds her, she screams until he knocks her out. She never screams again after that, never utters another word, her mothers name the last thing she ever says.

She’s silent during the long trek to the Republic. Silent while around her the wounded die, the frail get sick, the sick get better or die as well. Everywhere around her is the stench of death and decay. Death is in the faces around her, in the eyes that don’t make contact anymore, in the voices that fruitlessly try to console the unconsolable. Death is her only company, and she’s silent as well, so she bears it.

Death stays with her through the years. Time passes, life goes on but she’s always there, looking over her shoulder, caressing her at night. Her firstborn screams when he is born, healthy, unafraid and so full of life. He grows, and his laughter almost pushes Death away, almost frees her from her clutches. He laughs at her, and she laughs back. It’s the first sound she’s made in years, and it almost scares her. Death takes note, and that winter she claims him as well. Not with violence, but with disease, and there’s nothing she can do. Death is forever with her, her grip never loosening again. 

Her second child is stillborn, her third a daughter who lives, only to die at child-berth herself. At night she weeps, she cries, she soundlessly begs Death to take her as well. But Death likes her company, thinks her a friend, and simply stays with her.

Her Domina dies, and it’s a death that doesn’t move her, doesn’t bring her pain or grief, just hope that maybe her time will come soon as well. She’s too old to be of much worth, and her silence isn’t appreciated at her age, not even as a keeper of secrets. She’s sold to the mines, and she thinks that here, in Deaths home under the ground, Death will finally be merciful. She hopes, but as always, Death only claims those around her. First the other slaves, with hunger, festering wounds and disease. Later the Romans, with Rebel swords and miner stones. 

She’s freed from her chains, no longer a slave, but Deaths chains cannot so easily be broken. Rebels die, Romans die, and yet she lives. She’s silent, but never alone, Death forever perching on her shoulders.

She’s seen Deaths ways all her life, but for the first time, she witnesses a funeral, a pyre in honor of the dead. All around her, people call out names of those they loved, those they lost. She wishes she still had a voice to do so as well. For her father, she thinks. her mother, her sons, her daughter and grandchild. For the people of her village, the elders and children, for the people in the mines. For her, she thinks, because she’s been Death for years.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a crazy amount of feels about the people in the stands during the arena fights. And this woman stood out to me, because of the white in her hair, the severity of her face, and her silence. In my headcanon she’s from Iberia, and her name is Sicounen. She was a farm-slave for her entire life, until her Domina, who appreciated her because she couldn’t tell on the house secrets, died, when she was sold to the mines. She never had a husband or partner, but she did get pregnant three times, but she outlived all of her children. Honestly, I’m not capable of having happy headcanons anymore.


End file.
